Juanjo Puigcorbe Movies

This Spanish-French thriller is set in Madrid where latenight radio talk-show host Elena (Beatrice Dalle) gets a call from serial killer Javier Barea (Juanjo Puigcorbe, best-known for his comedy roles) who claims he will kill within the hour. Lawyer Maria Ramos (played by Spanish soap-opera star Lydia Bosch) is listening to the radio and immediately assembles an investigating team that includes Javier himself. Maria begins to suspect he's the killer, but she is simultaneously attracted to him. How long until she becomes the next victim? ~ Bhob Stewart, Rovi

Set in the suburbs, this tale of seduction, philandering, vengeance and murder is told with an airy, comical twist. The tale begins in summer on the day in which jealous husband Marco chokes his wife to death and then buries her in his backyard. He killed her because he discovered that she was planning to leave him for their neighbor, Andre. Because Andre is away on business, Marco tries to get more vengeance by seducing Consuelo, Andre's wife, but the relationship goes awry and once again Marco's thoughts turn to murder. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

In this lively Spanish-Argentine comic fantasy, two luckless actors get angry and with the help of a high school drama class jolt a sleepy, rural Argentina town into to taking much-needed political action. Before coming to town the disillusioned duo were making a meager existence performing their little play at cabarets and in small cafes. Despite their adverse position, Angel remains optimistic. Unfortunately, partner Eduardo, a fiery Basque, has had enough and angrily threatens to quit. An auto breakdown leads the two to the town which is in the process of electing new officials. The actors get booked to perform at a campaign dinner. There, the Eduardo loses his cool and launches a fiery attack on the official's big plan for building an enormous tourist hotel. A riot nearly ensues afterward. Later they encounter an old friend and former revolutionary who has become a school teacher in town and it is he who rallies his class to help Eduardo and Angel put their new play on at the town's ramshackle, abandoned theater. Naturally, the mayor and other officials are not happy that a reactionary play is being prepared in their town and do all they can to stop it. In the end, though a final conflict between the officials and the townsfolk provides the story's climax. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

In this sex farce, two eccentric manufacturing families from far-flung regions of Spain have come to Madrid in order to try and influence a government ministry's decision about who will make a particular set of Army uniforms. The man of the house, in one of the families, has married into it purely as a business arrangement. His current extramarital arrangement is with the family company's lovely female lawyer. Meanwhile, his decidedly odd wife has been experiencing sexual ecstasies while reading self-help books, and her sister has been passing the years by longing for the return of an old lover, a political radical she lost track of years ago. It turns out that the former radical is now the government minister they all hope to influence, and the minister's assistant is intensely interested in his old flame, the sister. The competing family head is also pursuing the sister in the other family, under the mistaken impression that she is the adulterous lawyer. Meanwhile, a transformation is taking place with the do-it-yourself addicted wife. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

There are many minor occupations in the bullfighting profession aside from the one most people focus on. In this black comedy, Justino (Saturnino Garcia) is a sixty-two year old retired puntillero who lives a carefree life, hanging out at the local bar with his cronies while living with his married son. As a puntillero, his responsibility was to deliver the death-killing blow to bulls in the bullring if the matador failed to do so. One day his son and daughter-in-law irritate him for some reason and he finishes them off the same way and then stores their bodies in the apartment's freezer. After that, just about anyone who irritates him in any way is likely to die, from the policemen who didn't believe him when he confessed to them about killing his son, to a whole houseful of elderly people in an old-age home. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

Scripter Alvaro del Amo and director Vicente Aranda adapted this Spanish film from Fernando G. Delgado's prize-winning novel. The story follows the psychosexual experiments of upper-middle-class consultant Begona (Laura Morante). Japanese businessmen arrive in Madrid to test a palm-size video gadget called "The Owl," and Begona uses it as both a confessional and a method of capturing her curves on tape. She accepts the challenge of biker Elio (Jose Corando) to go into a rough section of Madrid and let herself get gang-raped, but a more respectable life also beckons on other fronts. Shown at the 1998 Berlin Film Festival. ~ Bhob Stewart, Rovi

Throughout this low-brow semi-comedy, a group of Spanish military inductees regale each other with jokes, indulge in juvenile cameraderie, and generally pass the time away as only the energized young can, voluntarily locked up in a freight car on the train that is taking them to boot camp. While they are busy entertaining themselves in various ways, a fellow recruit who missed the train is chasing it (unsuccessfully) in a taxi, accompanied by his girlfriend. By the end of the train ride, after much commentary on military service and other relevant or not-so-relevant topics, the contrite recruits will have to emerge and face the music. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

This entertaining comedy is set in 1938 during the Spanish Civil War when a group of Republican soldiers sneak into a village in enemy territory to steal a bull with plans of butchering it to feed themselves. Fate and the bull itself, however, have other plans. One of the surreptitious bull-snatchers knows the village well -- he grew up there, but that advantage alone cannot guarantee their success, as it turns out. The group of five would-be thieves dress themselves in uniforms of the Nationalist troops in an attempt to dissimulate their true identity. But instead of a neat getaway with a bull in tow, they are caught up in the "correo" or running of the bull, they get involved in a religious procession, and in the end, watch as the bull breaks out of a flimsy ring in a bullfight and heads for the hills. Still hungry, the group of men now have to worry about getting back to their own battalion before they are found out. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

This sophisticated Spanish romantic comedy charts the course of a long-time on-again-off again love affair between Diana Balaguer and Santi Garcia. The story begins at a sumptuous dinner party for the King of Spain. There the beauteous Diana Balaguer makes eye contact with security guard Santi Garcia, and suddenly faints dead away. The story fades from 1996 to 1966, and the film switches from color to black-and-white. Diana is a teenager with a terrible crush on Beatle John Lennon. She sneaks into his room and hides under the bed when Lennon arrives with a groupie. Diana is shocked to find herself hiding beside the handsome Santi. As Lennon and the groupie begin making out, so do the youngsters beneath them. Thus begins their sporadic affair. Over its course, Diana reveals her ambitions to become a society hostess. Unfortunately, Santi simply wants to settle down, get married and raise children. Their differences cause the lovers to drift apart. By the time the film returns to the present tense, both lovers have undergone major changes. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

The generals in this comedy probably got their positions the old-fashioned way: through having good connections (and/or lots of family money) and sufficient seniority. What is certain is that they have no affinity for the study of modern warfare, which is what they have been sent to do here. They have grown so used to maintaining themselves as superior beings that it comes as quite a shock to them when a mere lieutenant is allowed to show them just how ignorant they are. Some of them even start to understand that in an era of missile-delivered nuclear warheads, it's not very safe to be quite so out of touch. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi